What are the happiest words to hear on a Monday?
“EComp’s canceled.”
What are the next happiest word to hear on a Monday?
“Analysis paper delayed until after Spring Break.”

If I turn up dead, half the freshman class will have had a motive to kill me. Perhaps I’ve been studying how to irritate people too well.

Since it’s Monday, let me collect some tasteless quotes that I’d been saving.

“What’s the attraction for girls kissing?”
See, my theory is that guys like slutty girls. But we’re also possessive, so we don't like seeing girls act slutty with other guys. But there’s no problem if the girl’s with another girl.
“Then how come I don’t like guys kissing?”
Well, it must be because you're not possessive.
No. Hm.
Nevermind then.

"What device, invented in 1869, was originally used to treat hysteria?"
I didn't know you could do that with a sheep!

“I don’t date whores.”
You’d make a very bad guy.

Dear Mr. or Ms. 382388,
I was just wondering whether you had any plans for who you’d be rooming with next year. Oh you do? NOT ANYMORE!

3228/4357, which I think good considering the lowest freshman lottery number is ~2800. I’ve begun evaluating upperclassmen dorms, with my, having become too exasperated with the washing, drying, and change machines, ironically going to Mudd to get clean clothes.

“try {
            quiz();
} catch(DontKnowWhatRaceConditionIsException dkwrcie) {
            wait(12:52);
            instructor.announce(definition);
            problem2.doExampleFor5pts;
}”

Forget about perfect attendance. Did anyone skip only 1 class this week?

Waif, free from wavy hair
And fragile flair,
Let those outgrown lie prone: don’t bear
Escaped Medusan lair.

So, you know how $1,638 worth of stuff is missing from Millbrook Market? That was me. Yeah. Sorry about that.

[IM me to read the rest of “Confessions of a Candy Thief”, which due to some unfortunate logistics will not be published in the upcoming edition of WUnderground.]

Splintered by wintered sting,
Speechless dreams fling
Back harpy’s sharp keen: Let nothing
Befall the future spring.

While reading “Brown” I notice two girls on my left and two guys to my right.

As one guy is ready to concede that differences in the sexes exist, they postulate hypothetical explanations before confirming beer pong plans. One girl doesn’t get some of the stereotypes, scornfully dissecting picked out phrases for her preoccupied friend.

There is silence.

One guy has discovered the context for the quotes, and the other reasons he is pro-antidiscrimination. One girl observes that while it’s only a theory, it is on the Times front page, which other girl defends; both want to see the primary source, but instead talk about a test.

Both pairs are discussing the same article and only I realize it. It was too surreal to ruin by revealing.

Yesterday was a good Friday, for EComp was canceled.
Speaking of Good Friday, I’m giving up Christ for Lent.

"Now is the winter of our discontent...."/You're probably looking for the other side of this card. It's not too late to flip over!/Modified Avalanche: 1) Rock 2) Rock 3) Paper 4) Rock (if necessary)/James Abram Garfield was the 20th US President./o matrix/(T): Add (W) to your mana pool./For more information, AIM: EmpTyger and ask for a cantaloupe./+> N/My other cheat card is deliberately left blank./Below is an inside joke from Math 201 involving striped shirts./If this were for a Baernstein exam, it wouldn't be the file card which would be lined.../But does your mouth feel clean? FABULOUS!/3x5 card = 15 card/If LOST, return to ABC Wednesdays, 8/7 central./The word cantaloupe appears on this card for no apparent reason./Not valid in Quebec or Lichtenstein. See store for details. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary.

There seem to be only 2 kinds of dryers here: ones that don’t work, and ones that don’t dry.

Having taken cold medicine and naps, I’m feeling better. Yay zeugma.

“Valentine’s Day sucks if you’re single.”
“It also sucks if you’re not.”

Anyone up for a little Lupercalia instead?

Vacuum (second eulogy)

Oft tell the timeless toils of souls now soiled
In times of grief that lie nigh lonely night,
When helpless spotted doth spot new hope spoiled:
Hero lain uncovered ‘mid uncleared blight.
Heartlessly slain upon a heartless day
Ere night ere rise of love’s impassion’d dawn
As heartless lie aggrieved in thoughtless way,
Left silent, warcry turned to fun’ral song.
On evil surface, walked upon unpaved,
Give too much dirt to too much death in dearth.
The worth of wholesome living left unsaved:
Eternal life etern’ly ruin’d by birth.
Never old in dying rust.
Ashes, ashes, dust, dust.

Add this sentence to your profile if you add stuff to your profile because someone else’s profile tells you to do so.

Add this sentence to your profile if you don’t add stuff to your profile because someone else’s profile tells you to do so.

New whiteboard finally mounted at 3pm yesterday. Stop by and give your prediction on how long before this one kills itself.

Not freezing like an ice parrot, or avoiding class like a mixed metaphor. For those who missed me in Village 3, I didn’t not perform.

Ehn. It’s been a bad week.
Out like a bad simile.

Zen counting the days until the weekend. Let me know when I can open my eyes, though I’m probably already asleep.

If it’s Monday, it must be time for tastelessness:
The University of Missouri-Rolla’s mascot is the Miner. So, like we have outside our library a statue of George Washington, they have a statue of a miner, with a hardhat and pickax, only their statue is inside the building we were in. Naturally, I had to have a picking of me molesting the statue, going for the “inappropriate relationship with a miner” joke. Of course, at that point I must follow-up with the “statutory rape” pun, and then I may as well 3-for-3 by “pulling on his tool”.

And then the next improv scene prompt just happens to be “Coal Mine”.

Saw “Trojan Women”, which was, as said by others, most fairly described as “interesting”. Hecuba was too whiny, Talthybius spoke too softly, the genre shifts were too done too abruptly, Helen honestly seemed cast solely for her ability and willingness to pole dance, and the theatre was distractingly too warm. However, Andromache was very good, as was Poseidon, and Chorus A of course contained some excellent performing.

No SI mentions this week, although Rolla’s statue of a miner and his tool evoked a triple of tasteless double entendres, and that was before dinnertime jokes about Ray Charles, Helen Keller, and Nazis in general. I’d repeat them, but I’m already babbling like a bad simile. I’ll provide salacious details when I’m less tired and have located photographic evidence.

Team Poisonous Platypi did remarkably well considering they were but 2 freshman who could not answer a question about Maryland for their lived-in-Maryland-for-most-of-their-lives. In fairness, I did preface by warning I'd be doing some crazy negging.

Anyone up for the ultimate roadtrip: Haugesund, Norway -> Trondheim, Norway, with MSN as the travel agent?

Seriously, I need plans for summer vacation.

[Gr... apparently Microsoft decided to actually fix a bug for a change. As it was, courtesy snopes.]

Mnemonic creation is the ultimate Rorschach test, only sometimes there are wrong answers. For {menw = I wait}, the correct mnemonic is not “men wait for me” but rather “a waiter brings you a menu”.

+1/2 but I’m getting the wrong answer.
My first (partial, though I was activated as a replacement very early) mafia game online (Newbie 76) has been more successful: as a vanilla, I was killed Night 2- with the cop killed Day 1 and the doctor Night 1- but before dying cast enough suspicions on the final mafia member that the town obtained a victory on Day 3.

It's Disneyland.
"No, I think it's Disneyworld."
No, my sister was just there.
"I've seen the commercials."
So have I!
"Should we vote on this?"
"I think it's 'world."
Anyone?
Please?
Fine.

Team Enrobed Milanos by 2 points over the too-tasteless-by-probably-only-a-week Team Tsunami.

I'm sorry, but I can't let you do this. It's 'land.
"Give me the paper."
I had seen the commercials with my sister, and we couldn't tell what they were for, and she was just at Disneyworld and it wasn't that!
"When was she there?"
A week and a half ago!
"Hm."
Look, I'll pay $5- to each of you- if I'm wrong.
"Hm. Okay."
Let me just check see that I have $20.
"Wait, I thought you were sure?"
No, I am. But my sister so owes me $20 if it isn't.

“If you see a mime sometime between now and then do not try and engage him in conversation, instead flee, flee for your very lives.”

I wish someone did get the officer’s name to find out if it were Beth; though since it was a middle school and not a church, discretion would concur that continuing the rapid movement away from the suspicious noises would indeed be most prudent.

*8* consecutive RPS victories in a room of 10 players is pure skill.

“Whistle while you work...”

“One man deserves the credit, / One man deserves the blame...”

Borrowing from Lobachevsky.

“...Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.”

Free pizza/free t-shirt. Probably the only reason I wouldn’t sell my soul for such is that it would be logically impossible.

Danny’s Corollary to Pascal’s Wager
Use who rather than whom.

“I’m guessing the 4x4 matrix is impossible, because otherwise you’d have to spend a long time doing it.”

Continuing Work-Study might be impossible.

Going to Suspicious of Whistlers for free pizza merits a callback?! Clearly I am an expert on intelligence.

Did you just say custard?
No, mustard. As in, we could relish some mustard when we catch up.

Okay I'm out like... like... we have both a banana and mozzarella cheese in the freezer.
Is that a metaphor or a statement of fact?

“Oedipus conjugated when he should have declined.”

I fear I hear Cat purr
And grow sadder
Since they, who sublime climb had, were
Upon fallen ladder.

For some reason my Away Message was not set yesterday, so all of you missed a bad pun. Similarly, my SI entries were overlooked this week. (Including one that could have been much funnier were I one who watches the OC.) So if you heard some bad joke coming from me this weekend, it wasn’t my fault- I swear it there was something in the French fries. (Like vodka, only without the alcohol.)

A man walks into a butcher shop and says to the butcher, "I bet you $5000 that you can't reach the meat on the top shelf". The butcher thinks for a second, then says, "Sorry, no, those steaks are too high.

“It’s an incentive to stay on top of things. You don’t know whether there’ll be a quiz. I don’t know whether there’ll be a quiz.”

In theory there is a 1/6 chance of having a pop quiz in CompSci. In practice, it’s a lot closer to 100%.

Google’s best advice regarding the current noxious influx of Spam-IM:
“One of these days, an attractive girl named Megan is going to im me and i'm not going to believe it because i'll just assume she's another one of these spam im things” [sic]

Four-square naturally evolves into dodgeball.

Wash U B (Team Korean Raw?) won 5 of our first 6 games- and then dropped 7 in a row to finish 5-8. At least we got propped as the funniest team there.

Highlights:
The appropriate incentive to discourage tardiness: having to take “The Judge”- a suitcase with 9 lights on the side that contains the buzzers, a battery, and a lot of wires- through security.

Fluxx. [It still might be my turn.]

Shuttle drivers and car rental agents will laugh at you if you try to take 9 people in 2 mid-sizeds.

Weakest Link. <[space]>

Ironically, one must be 19 to gamble in Canada.

RPS. [When it counted, 3-0.]

<sports bar trivia>
What kind of category is “Famous Roads”?
“How about the one Not Taken?”
“The Yellow Brick?”
Colossus of?
“...That’s the nerdiest thing I’ve heard all day.”

In an earlier Away Message I stated that
I am in a state that begins with M and is 8 letters long.

I think everyone who read that guessed wrong at least once, and most did so twice. For the record, there are 3 states {Maryland, Missouri, Michigan} that fit the criteria of beginning with M, being 8 letters long, and having me be in them while such an Away Message was displayed.

Appearing in Maryland while I was in Michigan was an SI entry attributed to Missouri which I composed in, er, Molorado. [Unprinted was Disquali-migration: Technical term for a Nannygate.]

I am in a state that begins with M and is 8 letters long.

I think my New Year’s resolution is to next year not have to make the New Year’s resolution to buy a calendar before New Year’s by buying a calendar before New Year’s. For the second consecutive year I am in mid-January scraping through leftovers trying to find a decent page-a-day calendar. Sure, they are discounted, but the saved money isn’t worth the hassle from limited selection.

(Finally decided on the Escher.)

“Catch-22” seemed more a collection of character sketches than an actual story, yet the further I read the more I became absorbed. There was an “Atlas Shrugged” moment, when like “Who is John Galt?” a phrase in the book transforms into an idea in the real world while still in the book. Nately’s whore’s kid sister reminded me of “Les Miserables”’s Cosette; I’m not sure what Rome was. Orr’s unexpected secret fit so perfectly [though I cannot remember what it reminded me of]. The narrative style convinces that Yossarian is insane, then that everyone is, and finally that Yossarian is the only sane one. But the biggest problem I had with “Catch-22” is that I thought “Caine Mutiny” better: the former says that war is crazy; the latter says why.

“The Dick Cheney Code” is more effective as a satire than a parody. I kept expecting the plot to perfectly parallel the source, but it instead diverged, probably to allow the political humor to be more one-sided. Most of the political jokes are the ubiquitous type; they are not as memorable as how effectively the book labels as bad a bestselling novel thought good. The book’s missed opportunities are equivalent to those of the Da Vinci Code.

And besides, the author also writes Latin humor books. And the local geography is too familiar.

Singled in this week’s SI. I’ll assume it was the best I submitted, since I don’t have access to my rejected entries.

For that has been the only critical disappointment with Vanessa: the lack of portability hence flexibility. Otherwise she truly has been fabulous. I’d forgotten how annoying it is to type on laptop’s keyboard, or to accidentally use the touchpad, or to try to angle the display. To say nothing of sharing.

The difficulty is somewhat ameliorated by the perfectly named external 80 GB offshoot or division of the main portion of a structure. Another contraption which happens to be a useful holiday gift.

Saw Wicker Park, having not given in despite my stalker having drugged me on the outbound flight, sabotaged the third in-flight movie on the return flight, and scratched tonight’s DVD. The random squeals emitted by the speakers were less painful than the dramatic irony the film is saturated with.

It is gratifying that he knows about the “used to be funnier” stage, and that it is so historically fundamental. For there is a cycle, one I have witnessed in others besides myself, going from introduction to discovery to reading to fanatic following to clipping columns to purchasing books to aforementioned realization. But following that final realization, after which the fanaticism leaves and one seeks humor elsewhere, there still remain too many uninitiated, who will not get some allusion, just waiting for their introduction into the greatest humor writer of the era.

Dave Barry Was Here

Focus Puller sounds like it should be a name. Like, “Focus Puller’s Day Off”.
Obscure cinematographic occupations were but one piece of trivia featured in the advertisements running too quickly in the Aspen theatre before coming attractions, so that it was a bit hard to snarkily comment upon them to BLS sitting beside me. The 2-3 seating arrangement was fortunate, since the family was seeing Meet the Fockers; for even though it was less painfully dramatically ironic than the original, with embarrassing replaced by embarrassed, the meta-pain was much worse.

It had nothing to do with the aborted nighttime stroll through Aspen.
The problem with a family ski vacation isn’t the ski part.

Begun watching Lost in addition to Alias, both of which resume tonight.

I may not be able to respect Michael Vartan any more- apparently he smokes...
That’s nothing; apparently Jennifer Garner has unprotected sex with Ben Affleck.
<winces> So that’s true? I saw it in some tabloid.
I read it on imdb. You know what happened the last time I disbelieved an imdb rumor about Jennifer Garner.

Claustrochronomentrophobia, the fear of closing walls and ticking clocks.

The underwhelming New Year’s celebration consisted of finally completely watching The Big Lebowski. It seemed overrated, ironically analogous to the title. There were a few moments, but it overall seemed to be missing something, probably plot, which made the relatively abrupt end feel anticlimactically unresolved.

I can’t help but think it was symbolically appropriate.

I’m beginning to slightly see a use for locative announcements, yet the banality of a fixed “munching on a rutabaga”, “studying rutabagas”, “rutabaging”, etc. seems too abhorrent. I suppose I could use my profile or restart a blog to continue the spirit of interest promised exactly 3 years ago, keeping the best of both worlds, but I feel too resistant for some reason. Or perhaps a second AIM account could provide the flexibility to be simultaneously boring and creative.

I don’t think I’ll do anything before I return to Vanessa, since my position is too stable and the connection too unstable.

A boring resolution for a boring New Year? Forget being resolute; I know not solution.

“Wouldn’t it be good if we could be together...”
Home, and I desperately need New Year’s plans. And Spring Break plans, for that matter, but first things first. If you're reading this and anywhere close to in town, IM/call.

[Awesome points if anyone parses the quoted lyrics.]
“...Take me away, / Take me far away from here...”

“Tomorrow's a day of mine / That you won't be in...”
May be nigh incommunicado until New Year’s Eve, but would love any contact from any set of friends, and especially regarding potential New Year’s plans. IM is certainly out; e-mail I’ll try to check but no guarantees; cell phone service???.

The first one since third grade without homework over it. I wish I didn’t have to leave, but there’s no reason to stay.
“Vacation / All I ever wanted / Vacation / Had to get away / Vacation / Meant to be spent alone...”

Finally watched Kill Bill 2. [Because there seriously isn’t anything better to do around here.] At one point I thought that there was absolutely no way that the plot could be resolved other than by deus ex machina, only to in astonishment realize halfway through the next chapter how plausibly it indeed was about to be. So until the end I held out an in retrospect unreasonable faith that, given a choice between contrived or realistic, there would be a realistic resolution; perhaps, as mentioned in a previous Away Message, in the manner in “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”.

I vent a silent prayer
Up endless stair:
Fall uncontrolled through soulless air,
And world, and I don't care.

“Too much poison come undone...”
I hate it when I have been enjoying a song only to discover that no, actually, it’s really about drugs.
And when it happens twice in one night.
“I don't think you're what you seem...”

You know you’ve switched from math to classics when someone asks what lim sup means and you immediately and only think of Pelops.

Does anyone know what the deal is with that massage room?
“I think that’s where they give massages...”
<laughter>
“...no, wait, I didn’t finish my sentence...”

“I was sitting on a plane next to a guy going to an anarchists’ convention in Ann Arbor...”
Wait, wait. How does someone organize an anarchists' convention?

There will likely be some kind of final Chanukkah celebration tonight. I’ll guess ~7:30 in Ursa’s Fireside. Bring your menorah, dreidel, gelt, candy canes…

My mad dreidel skills Night 7 (winning 75-10) compensate for my sucking at Candyland, which, in fairness, is likely genetic. I still maintain rock-paper-scissors is a game of total skill. And there is something to be said for the just introduced Guillotine’s killing French people.

Slivered pastry, oh so tasty,
Shrouding cream in candlelight:
Do delay tea, don't be hasty,
Come to kitchen in Forsyth.

With a very soft if rather large acrylic scarf having been abandoned for hours at Ursa’s unto closing time, I’ll try strangulation.

“Yet, another obvious truth is that there must be some catch, otherwise this would not be a studied problem.”

[This was not plagiarized from a stereotypically Duke profile.]

Sometimes it’s a miracle if the candles don’t stay lit.

Q: What do you tell a woman with 2 black eyes?
A: Nothing; for you've already told her twice of the inanity of using a bait and switch tactic to call together to a mandatory discussion allegedly on rape awareness but rather instead on semantics after 10pm on a busy night; thus it's not worth positing that humor, depending on an audience whose sense of humor will have been able to be judged from a period of cohabitation, consists of often defensively mechanistic reflections of observations of oddities of human existence, which in her particular case are based on a pun on connotative versus denotative meanings of "tell" and are only indirectly dependent on the scenario, in that easily identifiable circumstances better expose the double definition.

And who your worst sexual experience was with.

Metaanalytically, I suppose I would be least likely to burn down the dorm (or merely set off the smoke detectors) tomorrow, rather then tonight, for tomorrow’s action depends on a success tonight, and 2 vs. 3 candles seems insignificant compared to familiarity with the action. Although for determining the night most likely to burn down the dorm (or etc.) the additional candles would probably be most crucial, and accumulated carelessness from the evidently 7 arson-free nights could balance any initial inexperience.

I suppose it would indeed take a miracle to light 8 candles for 8 days.

[And it's not worth risking a mandatory Arson/Pyromania Awareness "floor program". Can't we go see a movie or go bowling or have psychological testing done on us like normal floors?]

Doubled SI. Rejecteds I also liked:
"Yasser Arafat Pronounced Dead in Paris" [2]
Linguists Unsurprised
Chirac Reveals Palestinian Leader's Secret Nickname: "Mortie"

"A Squeal of Approval for Avril Lavigne"
Teen Star Fit for Pigs

"Lindsay Lohan, Wilmer Valderrama Break Up"
Pair Considering Sprint, Cingular as Alternatives

"Iran Says It Will Suspend Uranium Program"
Secret Underground Cavern Will Hold Lofted Laboratory

"Schumer Will Not Run for N.Y. Governor"
Pataki's "Relay for Life" Team Left Undermanned

[likely unprintable]
"Coming of Age Takes on a New Meaning"
Beauty Left Unsatisfied

I am my own roommate.

“Excellentissimam virtutem, Crastine.”
“Party on, Caesar.”

“St. Louis, the Gateway to the West; and Baltimore… is in Maryland.”

Well played, Ken, a perfect replacement should Alex Trebek step down.

Continuing in the category “Other Things I Really Shouldn’t Care about This Week”:
These are collectively a crash, and should have a better plural form.
[What are rhinoceroses?]

The season’s first snow is always glorious, but especially following such a dreary rainy week. And yes, I know, it’s not the first snow; but why force it to count if no one else experienced it either?

Noon registration: Anyone considering sections of Diff.Eq.s, EComp, CompSci 2, or (less and less likely) Intro. to Linguistics? [Diff. Eq.s = 01 (10-11), EComp = 49 (2-3), CompSci 2 = C (4-5:30), Intro. to Linguistics = hahayeahno.]

3rd mistake:
3 <= 3
3|111
3! =/= 3

Nothing in this week’s SI for I completely misread the contest instructions; a particular shame since it ruined a joke I first attempted in 5th grade with an ideal setup, only to have been left waiting for another opportunity after mangling it. At least I am getting practice in faux-French collaboration.

‘Monsieur éléphant, while zee life is insignificant, as is zee living of it, and zee outcome of this situation may not be worth zee immediate intervention- mon dieu, who of us can ever tell?- it is not zee place of me to act decisively; but I will allow myself to say that zee ‘cowboy’’ (and by this he meant the Crocodile) ‘will bring about an unfavorable diplomatic isolation before you might say “qu'est-ce que c'est que cette petite tasse là qui j'ai prendre à ma tante de la bibliothèque, n'est-pas?”’

This is the way Tri-Colored-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

[And back through the bedroom window.]

Finding Neverland, despite adultery compounded with implications of pedophilia and drug usage, was a sadder “Shakespeare in Love” or “Shadowlands”. Perhaps it’s only a Washington thing, but the line “redskins are defeated” caused a wave of laughter to overwhelm an otherwise teary-eyed theatre. I still think the title would be better simply “Neverland”. Odd seeing Johnny Depp pretending to pretend to be a pirate.

The LinDanny bonding prior to returning from the east allowed chopstick usage to be instinctively taught. And you so owe me awesome points.
“...So we have time for a game?”

Virtually touring, for it is so transcendental.

At the annual Catchphrase game:
“Every woman has one… and she can never find anything in it…”
Someone did manage to guess “purse” before the first wave of laughter began to die.

[I will not even begin to guess why the computer was restarted. I hope no one tried to IM me...]

“Sweet dreams are made of this...”
With linen having not yet been praised, let me now extol the modal sheets, plush backrest, and luxurious egg crate which have allowed my dorm’s narrower bed to make even the diminished hours of sleep so luxuriously restful. And now at home I am able to sleep less tensely on eggshells.

[And also thankful for being able to get into Baskin-Robbins 5 minutes after they close.]

Not exactly sure how Away Messages will be maintained over Thanksgiving. If this is being displayed, likely not very well. Cell me.

[If this Away Message is being displayed I should be at home.

Although, since it means I'm away I suppose I could be out. It's still probably best to cell me. Or, since I'm allegedly home, call me here.

[Or, since I forgot how bad cell service is back home, perhaps IM would be better.]]

“Deseritur Cieros, linquunt Pthiotica Tempe
Crannonisque domos ac moenia Larisaea,
Pharsalum coeunt, Pharsalia tecta frequentant.
Rura colit nemo, mollescunt colla iuvencis,
non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris,
non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus,
non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram,
squalida desertis rubigo infertur aratris.
Ipsius at sedes, quacumque opulenta recessit
regia, fulgenti splendent auro atque argento.”

Obviously it’s about a cow.

Singled in this week’s SI, though it is more of a halved I suppose; my actual submission proposed a 2π% sales tax. I think I impressed the Empress by parenthetically citing an entry I feared similar to my proposal of strictly enforced 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 etc. item lanes. Yay academic integrity.

For a great book ought to not be read but once. As stated in a previous Away Message:

Reductio ad absurdum:
Orwell/​Carroll/​Orwell/​Tolstoy/​Unknown/​Waller/​Dostoevsky/​Chaucer/​Dickens/​Dumas/​Dostoevsky/​Marx/​Dickens/​Mann/​Hubbard/​Frank/​Johnson/​Dante/​Cervantes/​Stevenson/​Stoker/​Bradbury/​Turgenev/​Friedan/​Hemingway/​Rand/​Shelley/​Steinbeck/​Dickens/​Fitzgerald/​Seuss/​Rowling/​Conrad/​Doyle/​Twain/​Hugo/​Dostoevsky/​Homer/​Freud/​Ellison/​Benchley/​Alcott/​Nabokov/​Golding/​Kafka/​Eliot/​Melville/​Homer/​Steinbeck/​Dickens/​Kerouac/​Kesey/​Darwin/​Woolf/​Milton/​Wilde/​Austen/​Plato/​Rushdie/​Hawthorne/​Austen/​Eliot/​Carson/​Lawrence/​Shikibu/​Dickens/​Lao-Tzu/​Hardy/​Dumas/​Nietzsche/​Lee/​Woolf/​Stevenson/​Joyce/​Susann/​Thoreau/​Tolstoy/​London/​Baum

The next time I take a computer science course I am taking it pass/fail.

Watching and sometimes botching, wondering what emazing radce is.

I think maybe we meant radishes? But we were really hungry and tired and sorta confused...

So miserable I can’t even begin to whine in self-pity. I really hope there wasn’t anything going on this week that depended on me being in a good mood.

I somehow forgot to link to <http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com>; I think I planned to use this for my Election Day Away Message. A pity, for what had once been a refreshingly novel outlook has regressed into a too common repetitive mantra.

To paraphrase Churchill: American democracy is the worst form of government but I’m voting for it anyway.

No one should be this happy from using the Mean Value Theorem.

You want to know but you don’t want to know but you want to know.
My life is an onion and it’s making me cry.

Team Superfrosh has retired undefeated, after having taken first in its only tournament, in which the earned gift certificates when divided among team members ironically led to its receiving the lowest prize/person of all competitors.

Whither the Poisonous Platypuses (which also Word prefers to Platypi)?

Snatch was like Big Trouble, only for a very different audience. And, um, better.

(And rabbis actually do discuss the etymology of virgin.)

Pecanny Pinery
Catherine and Arthur, twins,
Cush’ning those prostrate on
Knees that won’t bend,

Fetched cafeteria,
Aiding those ailing from
Hypoglycemia:
Truly a friend.

No, it’s Jupina.
(Though I still think I prefer Orangina for that type of drink.)

A: Because she’s not tall enough.
Q: What’s the other reason why Barbara Mikulski wouldn’t get this joke?

I discovered a couple weeks ago that "rather accurate" is an oxymoron, but I can't take advantage of this. It's so long after the 60 Minutes scandal that everyone else has forgotten about it, and with the timing wrong it’s not funny enough to try. I had hoped that CBS would have some election-night snafu that would give me an opportunity to share this gem, but alas. What can one do with expired humor?

So between losing (again) and finding my key I came across an empty new journal lying abandoned by a trashcan, which just had to be acquired. However, I’m not exactly sure what to do with the thing. Too perfectionistic to begin to commit irrevocably by staining the bright white pages, I can always just strew them through Away Messages if I do want to record my private thoughts.

Fiddler on the Roof : Latin :: Tevye’s 2 youngest daughters : 4th and 5th declensions

The kleptomania mentioned in an earlier Away Message referred to the Election Judge button I absconded with. I wanted some piece of memorabilia, and without any “I Voted” stickers, the only other thing to take was a fistful of chad, for St. Louis used *those* Votomatic voting machines.

And speaking of stealing and elections, I am even more in favor of Electronic Voting Machines after having served with an alternative. Granted, this is the extreme straw man; but chad aside, the ease of overvoting is ridiculous, and it is not possible for it to be easier to (alleged worst case situation) code false smart-cards than it is to Xerox any of the so many pieces of paper that must impossibly be obsessively tracked, to say nothing of how awful checking for write-ins is.

A huge rush at the morning with a couple spikes in the day, and 88-90% turnout- then practically no one for the final 2 hours? We kept awaiting the huge pre-closing evening rush, until 10 minutes before closing, when we realized it wasn’t happening. So what do poll workers do when it gets slow? Bingo!

There are 6 check-in judges {A-C, D-G, H-K, L-P, Q-S (me for half the day), T-Z}, each with a voter register. By 5 most pages were nearly full, many needing only one more voter. (Absentee balloted were free spaces.) There was a 4-way tie with 2 bingos each with 30 minutes left, and a voter total of 2399; yet no one else came except for a girl who ran up at 7:02 as I was removing the outer signs, who I forget to ask the last name of.